In order to help students improve their L2 writing quality, it is thus important that they should be taught about both micro and macro skills of writing.
Another thing why writing skill is considered important is because “writing helps students learn” Raimes, 1983: 3. In that, writing reinforces the
language features that have been learnt to learners, gives learners opportunities to explore with the language, and practices their use of eye, hand, and brain in
expressing ideas. Here, writing promotes language production and keeps students active physically and cognitively in learning. In brief, in English language
teaching, writing is therefore significant for communication purpose, social acceptance, and promoting students in learning a language.
b. L2 Writing Teaching
The complex features of writing as explained in the previous subsection has made teaching the skill seem challenging. Generally, the teaching practices of
writing in L2 classrooms are influenced by teac her‟s beliefs and knowledge about
writing and teaching writing Hyland 2003. Respectively, the theoretical and practical knowledge about writing and teaching writing should therefore be
cleared out in order to teach the skill more effectively. In relation to this, Hyland 2003 highlights six principal orientations to L2 writing teaching which guide it
toward a different focus. They are summarized in the table below. Table 2.2 The principal orientations to L2 writing teaching Hyland 2003: 23
Orientation Emphasis Goals
Main pedagogic techniques Structure
Language form
- Grammatical accuracy
- Vocabulary building
- L2 proficiency Controlled composition, gap-fill,
substitution, error avoidance, indirect assessment, practice of
rhetorical patterns
Function Language
use Paragraph and
text organization patterns
Free writing, reordering, gap-fill, imitation of parallel texts, writing
from tables and graphs
Expressivist Writer - Individual
creativity - Self-discovery
Reading, pre-writing, journal writing, multiple drafting, and peer
critiques
Process Writer
Control of technique
Brain-storming, planning, multiple drafting, peer collaboration,
delayed editing, portfolio assessment
Content Subject
matter Writing through
relevant content and reading
Extensive and intensive reading, group
research projects, process or structure emphasis
Genre Text and
context Control of
rhetorical structure of
specific text-types - Modeling-negotiation-
construction cycle - Rhetorical consciousness-raising
Although separated into sections, the orientations are not approached in isolations. Cumming 2003, as cited in Hyland 2003, states that it is rarely done by
teachers to purely apply one theory only. He continues that commonly, they pick out and combine a number of conceptions to use complementary, though often
they may indicate one orientation is applied more preferably than the others. Take, for example, focusing on the language form, i.e. the grammatical accuracy and
vocabulary building, L2 writing teachers may encourage students to express their ideas creatively as well as direct them to organize the ideas in order to function
well in a certain context, while in the writing process collaborations can take place through feedbacks. Whatever approaches taken, however, there are essentially
three elements of a writing pedagogy which should be drawn on. They are the writer, dealing with understanding of the processes of producing a text; the text,
which concerns about the purposes of writing and the way to express them effectively in terms of formal and rhetorical text forms; and the reader, related to
the contexts within which texts are written and read and which make them meaningful Hyland 2002; 2003.
In addition, as L2 writing students have different needs and characteristics from L1 students Weigle 2002; Ferris Hedgcock 2005, determining the best
ways to teach L2 writing requires “flexibility” and “support” from the teachers Hyland 2002: 77. Hyland means that the teachers need to consider the individual
instructional context, including the students‟ age, first language background, prior
experience, L2 proficiency, writing purposes, target writing communities, and encourage them extensively by providing meaningful contexts, peer participation,
prior texts, helpful feedback and control in the writing process. Therefore, in relation to L2 writing teaching orientations mentioned above, a combination, or a
“synthesis”, such as by taking the best of the presented approaches, can be done to achieve maximum understanding and learning of writing Hyland 2003: 26. It
means that, in the classroom, teachers should concern not only with how to engage students more with texts and reader expectations, but also supporting them
with the knowledge of writing processes, language forms, and genres.
c. Sentence Writing
